Key To A Great Piano? Masters Note Reasons They Play Favorites

There`s usually a little line at the bottom of the program to tell you what brand of piano you`re listening to. And on the back of the program, there`s usually a testimonial, if the pianist is famous.

``The Steinway,`` says Claudio Arrau, ``fulfills the boldest dreams of the pianist.`` ``I learned `Petrushka` on a Baldwin,`` writes Leonard Bernstein, ``and composed `West Side Story` on a Baldwin. I have a Baldwin in my studio and play one just about everywhere I go. I guess you could say Baldwin is my piano.`` Garrick Ohlsson plays the Boesendorfer, and he doesn`t really need to put anything in the program, because the piano`s name is emblazoned in gold on its side.

Competition among pianos is almost as old as competition among pianists;

early in the 19th Century, the French firms of Erard and Pleyel vied for the endorsement of Chopin, and Pleyel won. Pleyel is still active in France; in Germany and Austria, a pianist can choose among the Bechstein, Boesendorfer and the Hamburg-manufactured Steinway (founded by the same family as the American Steinway, but today a different company).

Japan is now by far the world`s largest manufacturer of pianos, and, in many parts of the world, pianists find themselves playing the resident Yamaha, and with pleasure (``I played an outstanding instrument in Newfoundland,``

says Anthony di Bonaventura, ``and it bore the name of Yamaha.``) Companies vie with each other for the home and school markets, too, and this is a whole different ballgame, in which Baldwin probably leads.

In this country, the choice for a concert artist is usually three-way, among the American and the German Steinway and the Baldwin, and Steinway is the clear leader. In a survey of concerto engagements with major orchestras in the 1983-84 season, one of the Steinways will be used in 180 out of 188 programs.

Upstairs in Boston`s Symphony Hall, the orchestra maintains at least one of each and an extra Baldwin in a special room in which humidity and temperature are carefully controlled. A visiting virtuoso can choose the one he prefers.

A few super-celebrity pianists, such as Vladimir Horowitz, Maurizio Pollini and Rudolf Serkin, travel with their own pianos, trucks and drivers;

the promoter usually splits the cost with the artists. Several pianists have been playing the new Falcone piano,, and they have praised it highly.

Many factors go into an artist`s choice of piano, and few are so devoted to a brand name that they won`t play a different instrument if it is superior in tone or response. ``There are good Steinways and bad Baldwins and bad Steinways and good Baldwins,`` says Randall Hodgkinson, winner of the American Music Competition at Carnegie Hall and a pianist whose contracts specify Steinway. ``The bottom line is that any pianist will prefer the best available piano. There is no such thing as the piano that is unqualifiedly the best piano in every place and circumstance.``

And there is a human dimension, too: the nature and the quality of the services the piano companies provide to the pianists.

Recently we talked to a number of pianists about what they look for in an instrument and why they prefer the company that they do. Earl Wild, who made the all-time best-selling record of Gershwin`s``Rhapsody in Blue`` with Arthur Fiedler, unequivocally prefers the Baldwin. ``First of all,`` he says,

``Baldwin is constantly experimenting with their pianos, and they are constantly improving them--it`s important that they keep an open ear and that they don`t set themselves up as the last word.

``I stopped using the Steinway years ago after an incident in Baltimore. They sent me a piano that sounded like a sponge, and I got killed in the paper because they couldn`t hear me. I went in to complain--after all, they charged me quite a bit of money to send it to Baltimore--and all they said was, `Well, Rubinstein used it.` Well, you can just imagine what I said. Later I heard that Rubinstein had used it and that you could hear him screaming all up and down the length of 57th Street.

``Baldwin affords its artists better service, and they can make their pianos do what you want them to. I like a light action, for example--the lighter the action, the better; you can do more with it. It shouldn`t hurt when you play.``

Ursula Oppens, who has made frequent and welcome returns to the city where she was a student, is no longer an exclusive Baldwin artist, although she chose the Baldwin for her recent, highly acclaimed performances of the Carter Piano Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony under Michael Gielen.